Innovative organizational and economic approaches towards the consolidation of municipalities (on the example of the creation of the Cherepovets Municipal District)

Abstract

The reform of local self-government in Russia, initiated in 2003, led to the creation of a large number of municipalities, a comprehensive analysis of which showed that they are heterogeneous neither in terms of socio-economic development nor in terms of their own income security. Such a territorial change did not take into account many factors, and as a result, a large number of economically and financially insolvent territories were formed. Currently, there is a tendency to reduce the number of municipalities, in this regard, studies on the possibility of implementing measures to consolidate them are relevant. As a social institution, local self-government helps to find the optimal combination of the interests of the state with the interests of the municipality. The article reveals innovative organizational and managerial approaches to the consolidation of municipalities, which consist in the application of the institutionalization of the system of managerial relations, which includes the regulatory support of the process of local self-government, the system of regulation in the field of municipal relations, SWOT analysis of the process of consolidation of municipalities, etc. The development of inter-budgetary relations actualizes the problem of including local self-government in the system of federal relations, since the delegation of authority to manage settlements allows creating a system of financial and economic interaction between different levels of authorities. The prospects, opportunities and problems of creating the Cherepovets municipal district are identified. Based on the analysis of socio-economic data of the Cherepovets district of the Vologda region, the positive aspects of creating a municipal district are justified: increasing budget revenues by stopping the payment of “negative transfer”, optimizing the management apparatus of settlement administrations, effectively solving local problems, a unified approach to tax policy, optimizing costs by centralizing purchases, etc. There are also negative aspects of the transformation of the district into a district, which include: problems with the employment of municipal service settlements, the “remoteness” of the authorities from the population, the unsettled regulatory framework at the federal level.